By way of introduction, many broadcasters and regulators have demanded that TV broadcasts are made more accessible to viewers who have viewing or hearing difficulties. The demand has spurred the introduction of features, such as, subtitles (closed captions), “signed” broadcasts and audio description tracks.
Recently, the introduction of High Definition (HD) broadcasts and the increased interest in handheld TV reception devices have presented new challenges to content producers who have to produce and deliver images to differing types of displays with a significant range of visual resolution (perhaps 10:1 in the range of the pixel resolution of a HD display versus a handheld device).
A related challenge has been the display of widescreen film formats (such as 16:9) on standard definition (SD) format (4:3) TV displays. Early transmission systems simply prepared the content for delivery to a totally 4:3 audience by “pan and scan” in the studio as part of the telecine process of transferring feature films to video tape prior to transmission. An operator would select which part of the film image would be visible in the 4:3 “window”.
Some TV transmission standards have considered delivering the original broadcast in widescreen mode and also carrying some basic metadata to control the left/right shift of the image for display on a compatible 4:3 display. However, the functionality has never been widely deployed.
In the field of computers, Microsoft Corp. introduced the Microsoft “Magnifier” used to assist visually impaired PC users see sections of the screen at a larger size. The level of zoom and the area for zooming is totally controlled by the user.
The following references are believed to represent the state of the art:
U.S. Pat. No. 6,400,852 to Miller, II et al.;
U.S. Pat. No. 6,542,201 to Song, et al.;
U.S. Pat. No. 6,934,423 to Clapper;
US Published Patent Application No. 2005/0151884 of Oh; and
US Published Patent Application No. 2005/0151885 of Choi.
The disclosures of all references mentioned above and throughout the present specification, as well as the disclosures of all references mentioned in those references, are hereby incorporated herein by reference.